[R] tab characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Marie Sivertsen wrote:
> I see 'The R Inferno' being refered quiet often recently.  But it was now
> pointed by Duncan Murdoch that for example the statement concerning
> variables in a for loop is not correct in there (page 62).  As I can not
> find any information about the book been reviewed by anyone I have a
> question:  is it reliable resource for learning about R?  What is the
> authority of Patrick Burns?  I would like to avoid spending much time on
> learning from 'The R Inferno' to only later discover that it was wrong.


In short: Don't worry too much.

Pat is an experienced S and R user. In fact, he's been around since R
was little but a gleam in its fathers' eyes. He has a record of writing
stuff and publishing on the web, in a style somewhat different from what
the publishing companies seem to want. The R Inferno is his latest
addition, so he's liable to make a few "Hey, I wrote about that" kind of
posts.

A quick look suggest that this should be quite an amusing read, but it
isn't a textbook for beginners learning R. Rather, it is assumed that
you already know the basics, and now need to read about the pitfalls.
There could be inaccuracies (the for loop description is indeed mildly
off-base), but the intended audience can reasonably be assumed to
possess a critical mind. And the nice thing about web publications is
that mistakes can be fixed quickly.

-pd


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907